The New Year 2025 and the following 2026 bring anniversaries appropriate to Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich who was born in St Petersburg in 1906 and died in Moscow in 1975. Commemorating these events two of his 15 symphonies have been slotted into the NCH January programmes. His 10th of 1953 had the National Youth Orchestra on…
I am grateful to Finghin Collins for keeping me up to date about the next Dublin International Piano Competition taking place from May 9 to 16 2025. The Irish preliminary rounds are scheduled for Friday December 20 at the RIAM’s Whyte Recital Hall beginning at 09.15am and concluding at approximately 5.30pm with the results expected around 6pm. Twelve competitors – Adam…
I’m always glad to give some recognition to our young musicians whether or not they are planning to make the art the basis of their careers. With the spotlight shining on them at this time of the year, Barbara Elliott of Touchstone Communications tells me that the 2024 Top Security/Frank Maher Classical Music Award –…
A recent event at the National Concert Hall commemorated the centenary of the death in 1924 of Giacomo Puccini through his Messa di Gloria. An early work, the piece still has considerable merit to its credit. However, I felt the respectable performance under visiting conductor Carlo Rizzi with tenor and bass soloists – Gwyn Hughes…
October and eyes and ears turn to Wexford where the town’s seventy-third Opera Festival runs from October 18 until November 2. Now, one might be forgiven in thinking the most often performed composers in Wexford might be either Verdi or Puccini but, in fact, the honours fall on Gaetano Donizetti. Born in Bergamo in 1797,…
In welcoming the audience to the opening of the 2024/25 season at the National Concert Hall, Chairperson Maura McGrath and CEO Robert Read pointed out that the season would be “one of the most ambitious to date comprising more than sixty concerts and other events, showcasing some of the world’s most exciting and dynamic musicians…
This month commemorates the bicentenary of the birth of the Austrian organist/composer Anton Bruckner. The anniversary was celebrated at the NCH last week through his 4th Symphony (Romantic) played by the visiting Bavarian Radio Orchestra, one of Europe’s finest broadcasting ensembles, under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. Born in Ansfelden in Upper Austria, Bruckner…
As promised last time round here is a little more about Waterford-born composer William Vincent Wallace (1812-1865). Now, it must be remembered Wallace revelled in story telling with one commentator claiming he was ‘charming but unprincipled, and his habitual untruthfulness makes it hard to determine real facts about him’. Wallace definitely was in Mexico City…
Time was when William Vincent Wallace was a household name with his music gracing many an operatic stage and concert venue and being played and sung in many a homely parlour. However, time and fashions change and what is enjoyed by one generation may well be relegated to obscurity by the next. With soprano Rachel…
While this may be a time of relaxation when holidays are in full sway, for those involved with the Kilkenny Arts Festival that runs from August 8 to 18, it means a particularly busy period. The principal feature of the 2024 festival will be a short opera and monodrama by Emma O’Halloran, Trade and Mary…